Alexander Hamilton

As Chernow gives a history of John Adams, he highlights Adams’s poor health, his paranoia, and the fact that he would strike the “lowest blows” (624) against Hamilton. Adams was an insecure man who held grudges indefinitely. His relationship with Hamilton could not have been more different that Hamilton’s relationship with George Washington. 

Hamilton received a letter from William Hamilton, a Scotsman who was one of his father’s younger brothers. They stayed in touch for a year, after which William revealed his true reason for writing: He wanted Hamilton to help him find a job for his brother Robert, who was a sailor. Hamilton took Robert into his home for five months and helped him become a lieutenant in the US Navy.

John and Angelica Church returned to New York, where Hamilton and Angelica resumed their flirtatious relationship.

James Thomson Callender, “an ugly, misshapen little man who had made a career of spewing venom “(634), published a series of pamphlets called History of the United States for 1796. In them, Callender rehashed the Reynolds scandal. Hamilton believed that Jefferson was behind the expose. He responded with a 95-page booklet in defense of himself.